TruSense GPS Pendant review: This GPS tracking device for the elderly needs a mobile app - carterreanday37

At a Glance

Expert's Rating

Pros

• Small and wanton
• Easy setup process
• SOS button lets pendant wearer call for service

Cons

• No native mobile app (yet)
• Erratic position tracking in spotty animate thing coverage areas

Our Verdict

The TruSense GPS Pendant makes for an easy, relatively inexpensive path to keep tabs on a older white-haired one who's living alone, but the lack (for now, in any event) of an accompanying mobile app is a frustrating skip.

Small, lightweight, and relatively simple to set up, the TruSense GPS Pendant allows you to keep an eye happening an elderly beloved who's weakly operating theater otherwise in need of assistance. But patc caregivers will appreciate the chandelier's SOS button and fall detection, they'll be frustrated by the lack of a true mobile app to go with it.

Design

Measuring about 2.5 x 1.75 x 0.6 inches and weighing roughly 1.5 ounces, the TruSense GPS Pendant is about the size of a car Francis Scott Key fob. Information technology comes with both a lanyard and a padded Velcro wrist strap. Wearing the pendant around your neck takes a little getting put-upon to, merely it doesn't set about it your way patc walking around the house or winning a neighborhood stroll. You can even wear the waterproof pendant in the shower, although you should probably take it disconnected before doing any laps in the pool.

Ben Patterson / IDG

The TruSense Pendant comes with some a wrist strap and a lanyard.

On the pendant itself is a world power button, a USB charging porthole (which is hidden beneath a flexible plastic flap), and 2 little gamy and green LEDs that indicate charging and indicate position. A compact charging provenience and USB cable are included in the box.

Price and religious service cost

The TruSense GPS Pendant itself costs $129, or $49 if you invite a class's worth of service up front. On cover of that, you'll also have to shell out $25 per month for a service project, which includes unlimited GPS trailing and two-way calls with the TruSense Emergency Reception Centre. To peel thrown the monthly bill, you backside choose for a three-month plan at $22.50 a month, a sextuplet-month subscription at $20 a calendar month, or a year-long project for $17.50 a month.

Setup

The first-time setup for the TruSense GPS Pendant is a comparatively spatula-shaped process. Inside the packaging is a card with an eight-finger registration code. Once you've created an news report on the TruSense website, you just input the code, and so add the name, address, and phone number for the person who will be wearing the pendant.

Next, you type in the data for the wearer's emergency contact person (either you Beaver State someone else), then enter a credit card act for billing purposes.

At long last, you turn the pendant on, put it in its charging rocker (which, incidentally, will automatically act on the pendant the moment it begins charging), and compress a Start out Energizing button on the TruSense website. Assumptive you have a good cellular bespeak at home, the activation should only take a few proceedings.

Tracking and monitoring

The TruSense GPS Pendant reports its location every few minutes or so, which you can view on a Google-powered map via the TruSense website.

Ben Patterson / IDG

Once logged into the TruSense web portal, you can view the device's current location, inside information on its battery life and signal strength, a log of recent trips, and whether the twist is nonmoving in its charger.

You derriere also set up geofences about an unlimited number of locations, and you can set the TruSense overhaul to send word you and/or another caregiver via SMS or a phone call whenever your caterpillar-tracked beloved arrives at Oregon leaves a designated location.

In addition to trailing the pendant's stream location, the TruSense portal keeps a log of trips that the gimmick has taken. That's a handy feature article for keeping track of a loved indefinite's comings and goings, only information technology can also lead to unintended consequences in fluky cellular coverage areas. During my testing, the Previous Trips log became littered with dozens of trips, each spanning anywhere from 150 to 300 feet. The culprit: The spotty cellular help in my apartment, resulting in herky-jerky location readings that fooled the pendant into thought process it was in transit.

Ben Patterson

The TruSense net portal displays the currrent location of the GPS pendant, along with a log of previous trips.

A bigger problem is the deficiency of a true mobile app to go with the TruSense pendant. For now, those tracking preferred ones with TruSense on an iPhone Beaver State Android phone will have to do so on a browser. (Luckily, the TruSense internet site is mobile-friendly.) We'd much prefer a native mobile app that allowed for notifications and more unchangeable performance. A TruSense rep told me the fellowship is indeed practical on a mobile app, although it won't arrive until later this year.

Calling and communicating

The TruSense GPS pendant features a large silver 'SOS' button. Press and obtain the push for three seconds, and the pendant testament connect the wearer to TruSense's 24×7 emergency answer team.

Victimization the pendant's constitutional speaker and microphone, the pendant drug user can talk to the responders and tell off them if they need help. If you enable an optional setting, the TruSense monitoring center will contact paramedics if the pendant wearer doesn't respond, and they can't reach any of the designated emergency contacts.

The dependent likewise comes stocked with with a fall sensor, which alerts TruSense's emergency team on with any caregivers you've designated if the device thinks your loved one has collapsed. While the fall demodulator is a reassuring feature for those with old parents living alone, IT's also prone to false alarms, particularly if you accidentally drop the supported. Naturally, if the pendent does happen to slip through your fingers, you give notice plainly tell the TruSense reply team via the device's built-in microphone that you'Re OK.

For more detailed data about what's happening at home, such as whether the friend or loved one you're tracking is actually wearing the pendant, or if they've been in a particular elbow room at home for an worryingly years, you'll deman to pony upwards $300 for the TruSense Home Starter Kit. The set bundles an Amazon River Echo Dot with a series of gesticulate sensors, wall outlets, and contact sensors. As you might gestate, information technology comes with a pricier monthly subscription plan that starts at $28 a month.

Termination

The TruSense GPS Pendant makes for an easy, relatively inexpensive way to keep tabs happening an elderly loved one, but the experience of using the device would equal greatly improved by a dedicated mobile app. For like a sho, you'll have to make coiffe with its mobile web interface's sometimes spotty performance.

Source: https://www.pcworld.com/article/401906/trusense-gps-pendant-review.html

Posted by: carterreanday37.blogspot.com

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